


One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

by dgalerab



Series: Timelines 1-2.1 [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Different Apocalypse, Gen, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 03:43:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18563224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dgalerab/pseuds/dgalerab
Summary: Sidestory to An Eye For An Eye (ft. massive spoilers up to Chapter 13 of that story).Five doesn't trust Leonard Peabody one bit.And he's right not to.





	One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to my other fic, An Eye For An Eye, and sadly will not make sense without that fic. It also reveals a twist that is revealed around chapter 13 for that.
> 
> But mostly it's just angst, so if you really wanna read it as a oneshot, it's probably fine? Idk man.
> 
> As for warnings... I didn't tag MCD because while the whole family is dead for the duration of this fic, Five will eventually jump back and uh... un-dead them.

Leonard Peabody joins the survivor camp 3524 days into the apocalypse.

After nearly 10 years without his family, Five has learned a few things. He’s learned how to sleep as little as he needs to, to minimize the possibility that the people he’s forced to share his room with will see him wake up crying or screaming. It’s long enough to make Grace a charging station from water and sand that keeps her functional. It’s long enough to learn how to keep his moments clinging to her private, so people don’t start shit about her – she’s for First-Aid, is all they have to know.

It’s long enough that most of the survivors are used to him. They know the rules. They let him ramble physics and math at them while they work because they believe he’ll actually make it back. Fix all this. Stop it from ever happening, and bring their loved ones back. They know he doesn’t want to be friends. After all, the end goal is to make sure he never meets any of them. It’s cold, he knows – he’ll miss some of them. But everyone in the house is better off with their families. Five is better off with his family.

It’s long enough that everyone knows not to ask about the Umbrella Academy.

There’s no pragmatic reason for that. Everyone else talks about their loved ones, through tears and bittersweet laughter. But Five thinks that deep down, they’ve all accepted that their families and friends are dead forever. Five will go back. Five _has_ to go back. He’s read their book so many times, he fears it’ll fall apart.

They waited for him. They kept his room open, kept a space for him in every picture, in every part of their lives.

He has to get back. He knows he’s done it before, in another life. It’s possible, and he will do it.

He doesn’t want to reminisce. He doesn’t want to answer to prying eyes that read all about his family. They might be heroes, almost _myths_ to everyone else, but to Five they’re everything, and he’s not ready to act as though they’re gone. It doesn’t matter that he found the bodies, doesn’t matter that he hasn’t seen them for 10 years. They haven’t seen him for 17.

And maybe the fact that when he thinks of them under watchful, understanding eyes, his throat squeezes and he can’t breathe is part of it. Maybe.

But as much chaos as this apocalypse breeds, people understand. They’re all working together. Five brings them food, bandages. He can get into places no one else can and he’s taken out more of those things than anyone. He also comes with Grace, and Grace provides invaluable, tireless help. When he flickers out of sight the moment they ask, when he shuts down the minute they mention his past or families, they leave him be.

But Leonard Peabody doesn’t.

He seems harmless enough at first. Gets along well with people. Five is almost relieved to have him for the first few days. A survivor that’s cheerful and friendly instead of panicked and suspicious is always good news.

They have a handful of them already – the optimists. Jane, an old woman who feels like everyone’s grandmother, who always nods along sagely when Five trails along beside her as she does laundry, babbling about time-dependent perturbation theory, even though she’d dropped out of high school to help her family with bills. Charlie, a man in his late thirties who knows when to cry with everyone but also how to get a smile on their face. He’s even made Five laugh a few times. Ann, who was barely out of chemo when the disaster hit, who gets tired easily and tends to the gardens, but who everyone loves even when there’s a tendency to panic over “dead weight.”

Five shuffles Peabody in with them, up until he starts getting forgetful. Then, the association starts to feel dirtier and dirtier.

He knows how to look innocent, that’s for sure. It’s always a slip up, always just an honest mistake. Peabody acts like he doesn’t even know what “that Umbrella Thing” is. “Oh, right you have… _had_ sisters…” he asks, looking so sincere when Five offers his food up for Janice, who is younger than him and six months pregnant. “Huh, he _does_ look like you…” he says, seemingly to himself, glancing at the comics Five doesn’t have the heart to hide away.

 It’s 3672 days into the apocalypse before the other leaders start to get suspicious of Peabody. There’s five of them that have been unofficially appointed as “in charge.” Five, because he comes with skills and resources that no one can match. The rest for similar reasons, but also because they were loath to leave a child unattended in such a position of leadership.

He’d been annoyed, at first, but when they agree that Peabody is suspicious, he’s relieved. He needs their help, he’s come to admit. Andy is a high school teacher, but also an avid camper. His wife didn’t make it. Sharon is only seven years older than Five, but she’s sharp as a needle. Sasha is an older black woman who worked several decades in charity drives, and she has experience that Five could never make up for. Alice is an engineer, who Five had met early on. She’d been no small part of why Five still has Grace up and running, and as such Five has a soft spot for her.

They step in firmly to keep Peabody and Five apart, and Five breathes a little easier. Even with his suspicions, he hadn’t realized just how daunting Peabody could be behind that easygoing façade. How intensely he’d watched Five, like a hawk baring down on prey.

And then, of course, just when Five thinks he’s free of Peabody’s wretched stare, Peabody has to go and save his life.

It’s his own damn fault, really. He leaves one of the survivors to search an area alone, one of the younger kids that don’t know what the hell they’re doing. He’d thought he’d checked it out, made sure all the doors were firmly closed, but he was wrong.

He hears screaming, and he immediately jumps in to save him. He gets the kid out, but there’s too many monsters. They’ll never make it more than a block, and Five’s been flickering in and out of locked rooms all day – he’ll never be able to jump the kid out of there and be anything more than a quivering pile of useless jelly that someone has to carry home.

So he causes a distraction. Makes sure the kid has a clear path, draws the monsters to him. But he’s tired, they’re coming from too many directions. One of them get their paws on him, slam him into the wall. He makes it out from under it before it tears his throat out with its gnashing teeth, but that has him crossing his limit. He’s dizzy, he can’t jump, and there’s at least three more monsters bearing down on him.

He can taste the panic, the failure. If he dies, his family stays dead. All the scared people cooped up in his house have no chance to get back to their lives. He nearly cries as he tries to wrestle his way out.

And then Peabody swoops in, shoots the thing holding Five down and drags him out of there.

_Maybe we were wrong about him_ , everyone says. _Maybe he’s just kind of a creepy idiot. But maybe he means well._

Five doesn’t want to allow it, but he can’t argue. He’d made a dumb mistake, missing an open door, and Peabody had come back to save his ass. Maybe he’s just socially inept. It’s not like Five has room to talk.

He doesn’t have to _like_ him, though. But he tolerates him. He tolerates the slip ups, painful as they are. Avoids him as subtly as he can.

And then he finally finds Vanya’s apartment.

It _hurts._

Her violin is left out of its case, like she hadn’t expected to be gone for long. She has all the family pictures Klaus and Diego did, but also several others. Of her concerts, of her girlfriend. Her girlfriend is beautiful. Her concerns probably sounded amazing too.

He searches her apartment. It’s an invasion of privacy he’ll have to apologize for when he gets back, but he needs everything he can keep of them until he does.

He finds letters from Allison and Luther in one box on the top shelf, postcards from LA and dozens of pictures of Claire – Five’s niece, who he wants so badly to meet. In another box in the nightstand, he finds letters from Ben. Letter after letter about college – something he’d done to help Five, which makes it ache so much more – and his book, and conversations he’d had with Klaus on the phone, and about how he couldn’t wait for their weekend trips. Five guesses that Ben talked to Klaus and Diego on the phone, but for Vanya he’d sent something to keep, and there’s so many words, so many stories, and Five sits in her apartment reading them for far too long, trying not to get tears on his precious cargo.

And finally, tucked under her bed, he finds a box of scrap papers in his own handwriting. Quick, rushed, like they’d mentioned in his book, but also things they hadn’t mentioned in the book. Private little secrets, moments hidden away, some things he doesn’t _remember_.

In another life, they must have been with him, leaving these notes. He’s jealous beyond belief of that life.

He finds a letter he doesn’t remember writing, and cries until he can’t anymore, and finally, he finds a picture.

“Son of a bitch,” he whispers.

On the back, his own handwriting warns – _This man goes by Leonard Peabody, but his real name is Harold Jenkins. Do not trust him, no matter what he seems like. He is dangerous. He will kill you._

He tries to be reasonable. Careful. He tries to keep a cool head. If Peabody – _Jenkins, the fuck_ – is really so dangerous, he needs to tell the others, come up with a plan.

But the second he gets back to the house, Jenkins smiles at him. Like he fucking _knows._

It’s been 10 years, and Five has just seen the empty, dead apartment of his favorite sister, left behind because she was shot in some goddamn apartment building. “You son of a bitch,” he says, cornering Jenkins in the room Jenkins had chosen. He waves away everyone else. No one else needs to get hurt here. Just Jenkins.

“Something the matter, Five?” Jenkins says, sitting down on his mattress casually, smiling. He knows. He _knows_.

“I knew something was wrong about you,” Five hisses.

“Did I do something wrong?” Jenkins ask. “I’m happy to apologize if you just let me know.”

“Did you kill my family?” Five hisses.

Jenkins laughs. He _laughs_.

“Did you fucking kill them?” Five snarls.

“Of course I didn’t kill your family,” Jenkins says.

Five sees red. “Stop lying to me, Jenkins!”

Harold pauses at that, chuckles. His hands stay at his side, fingers slipping under the mattress. Five is too angry to follow them, and he regrets it dearly afterwards. “Five. Look at me. I’m not lying to you. I didn’t kill your family.”

He looks Five in the eyes. He looks like he means it. Five rocks back on his heels, unsure what to do. _He will kill you_ flashes before his eyes, in his handwriting, in bold letters. But Jenkins says it steadily, without a flicker of his eyes to suggest otherwise.

“I didn’t kill your family.”

Five steps back. He needs to talk to the others, make sure Jenkins can’t do anything, can’t hurt anyone else before Five can get answers out of him.

Jenkins sees the moment Five’s guard falters even the slightest bit. “Not yet,” he says.

Five’s been obsessively thinking about time travel for 10 years. He puts it together fast. He doesn’t hesitate before jumping across the room to try to grab Jenkins, but there’s a click and a swish not unlike his own powers, and the room is empty. “No!” he cries. “Fuck! No!”

But no matter what he does now, Jenkins is gone.

He’s gone back. He’s gone back and he’s going to kill Five’s family. He hadn’t done it yet, but now he will, because Five let him get away.

He let the man who will kill his family – leave their corpses on the floor where they fell like they were animals he’d gunned down – go back to the past he can’t get back to after 10 years of tireless work.

So, naturally, he does the only thing he can in such a situation.

He gets wasted.

From there on, it gets blurry. He tries to start a fight, at some point, with someone, but no one takes the bait. He’s probably crying. He ends up on the chandelier, with half a dozen people yelling at him to get down before he hurts himself, and yells something like, “Anyone wanna fuck me sideways? Life is already doing it, why not get in on the action?”

And then he falls off the chandelier, and everything goes black.

He wakes up in a lot of pain, Grace hovering over him. “Don’t move,” she tells him. “You’ve broken your arm and several ribs, and we don’t have very much morphine.”

“Why does he get to go back?” Five asks her, even though she can’t answer. She’s not built for pain like this. No one is. “I can time travel. It’s my power. Why does he get to be better at it? Why does he get to go back?”

She doesn’t answer, just presses a cool cloth to his head.

“Why?” he asks her, again, though he knows she doesn’t have answers. There are no answers. Life is just like this, just awful and cruel and senseless. “Why can’t I? I’ve done nothing but try for years, and Harold Jenkins can go back whenever he wants?”

She strokes his hair out of his face and smiles at him sadly.

“I miss them so much, Mom, why can’t _I_ go back to them?”

“You will, Five, dear, you will.”

He doesn’t know how to believe her right now, but he tries anyway. She holds him, like she always did, the last of his family still alive. In the end, he doesn’t give a shit if everyone in the damn house hears him. He cries himself to sleep in her lap.

**Author's Note:**

> And 4 years later he makes it back only to be promptly overridden by a 58 year old version of himself who then makes all the same mistakes he would have made anyway, because Five is the same kind of dumbass at any age and in every world.


End file.
